After a good walk, the team arrives at a grey concrete structure on the west side of Whitehall town. Matt locates a metal door that appears to be the entrance. Hoping to gain entry, the swordsman kicks the metal door but immediately hops back in pain. Anna and Nolegs look for windows, while Sunset and Natalie plan to use a spell to break down the door if they cannot enter any other way. Lance studies the door and discovers a cluster of wires running into the ground. While the gunner traces the connections to find the access control, he locates a large battery. Lance expertly connects the battery to the entry mechanism and the door creaks open.
"Nice work, Lance," Natalie cheers, "Your knowledge of AI technology will help all of us a lot."
"Yeah," Lance whines and sighs, "Ve all better hope ye can remember the machinery concepts after so many years. Let's go."
“Hold it.” Calls Sunset to the team. “We better do something first.” The dragon points to the open entrance and takes out her staff. The team falls back as a putrid cloud of dust emanates from the plant. Sunset casts a protection spell on the team. “There, now we can breathe.”
“Good idea, Sunset.” Said Lance. “Ve don’t know what know kinds of chemicals are in thar.”
The Team enters the plant to look for the controls the old guard told them about. Seeing the main room has so many doors and walkways, Matt sits down on the floor to think. Sunset is going to step forward to investigate the next room but stops when she hears the sound of muffled scraping. Anna follows the sound to a small metal wardrobe. The team readies themselves as Matt quietly tiptoes up the storage door and swiftly opens it. A short brown haired girl wearing an astronaut suit falls out. Seeing the group, she panics and waves her arms furiously yelling, "Please don't hurt me."
Matt tries to comfort the girl. "Now, now. We are here to shut down and destroy this factory. Not to hurt anyone."
Sighing in relief at her rescuers, the girl replies, "Thank goodness! Nowhere is safe in this building anymore." She looks at each team member to thank them before the girl notices Sunset behind her. Falling backward, the girl renews her screams as she makes a mad dash back to the wardrobe. Sunset's face claws while the others laugh at her.
Matt knocks on the metal storage door, "It's ok. Please, that dragon is part of our team and our good friend. There is no need to panic." Nervously, the girl walks out of the wardrobe and apologizes to the now annoyed Sunset. Matt asks, "So what is your name, and why are you hiding?"
The girl replies, "My name is April. I used to be an employee in this plant. You see one day this mysterious man appeared claiming to be a maintenance worker. When the man disappeared, the rest of the employees thought he had just left. But later it was discovered he was hiding in the main control room. Soon the man took over the factory. He is controlling most of the worker robots and causing them to attack the employees. He also locks most of the doors, but luckily there are emergency switches that only the employees can activate."
Anna asks April, "So we can still get around the factory then? As long as we activate the switches?"
April nods, "Yes, pretty much. Please help rescue all of the people that trapped here. They have nothing to do with a factory that is spewing out that toxic cloud. We cannot stop the malfunctioning machines without getting into the control room. Once inside the machines can be set to overload and it will destroy this factory."
Matt rubs his chin as he is thinking about something, "Hey April," April turns to Matt, he asks her, “Can you help us out? We may need a guide around this building since we have no idea about its layout. Don't worry, we will protect you."
April is silent for a while, then she gives Matt a condition, "All right, I agree with that. But you have to rescue all of the people first." The team all nods in agreement.
April leads the team through the factory’s various rooms. There are also many pipes, electric gadgets, and some flying robots. Fortunately, the robots ignore the team. Lance analyzes several machines to better understand the site’s level of technology. Eventually, April leads them to an imposing-looking bolted gate.
"Well, this is it. The entrance to the central control room is behind this blast door." April announces, "However you have to collect three large batteries to open the door." She first points at the big plug sticking out of the ground, then she points at three other rooms. "They are located in those rooms."
The team starts discussing a plan to acquire the three batteries. April describes the inside of different areas. Also, the battery parts are guarded. After a brief deliberation, the team decided to split up to tackle the rooms. Matt and Natalie go to the first room. Anna and Nolegs go to the second room. Sunset requests to go to the last room alone. Lance volunteers to stay behind and watch April.
Lance asks April, "So ve are just plugging three batteries in to open that door right?"
April agrees, "Yes, we need all three batteries to have enough energy to power the door mechanism. Otherwise it would be impossible to open a multi-ton door." then she points at the computer, "When the door opening device is activated, I can access the locks and open the door."
Lance nods, "I see. So ve have to wait here for the others. Well, no need to be idle..." April watches in confusion as Lance sets up his camping tools and makes a fire. She decides to help prepare the area for the rest of the team's return.
Natalie and Matt walk into the first room, however, the room appears to be empty except for a checkered floor. Cautiously, they continue to look around for clues. Matt feels something is off when one of his feet shift slightly. Looking down, he sees a square on the floor move. Noticing a shadow suddenly above him, the swordsman instinctively jumps back to barely avoid a giant steel sphere. Matt and Natalie both gasp in surprise at the object’s abrupt appearance. Undeterred, Natalie looks around to see if there is anything useful for navigating the chamber. Then she sees a small object in the corner. Walking over, the mage spots a small chessboard.
"Hey, look, Matt," As Natalie holds up the chessboard, "This is our guide. Now we can move safely to the other side of the room."
Matt takes the chessboard. After looking for a while, he rubs his head, "eh... this is... like a chessboard you know." He holds the chessboard out and continues, "…except for this dot."
Natalie exclaims, "You are so thick-headed! This board may show the location of the traps." She takes the chessboard from Matt and walks over the edge of the squares, "Now I will go with 1A, the one that doesn't have any dot". Natalie puts her feet on the 1A square to active the tile, then she quickly jumps back as many knives drop from the roof.
Matt takes the chessboard and crosses the 1A squares with his pen. He cheers Natalie, "Well, look like someone has triggered a trap for me," Natalie is going to slap Matt but he raises his hand then points at the big battery on the other side of the room, "Before you slap me, let's pass-through this room first and get the battery."
Natalie rolls her eyes as she has to agree with him. Now, they have to follow the chessboard to see if it is right or wrong. This will be a long day.
Using all of her skills in stealth, Anna slips noiselessly into the second room to scout out the situation. Sitting on Anna’s shoulders, Nolegs carefully watches the archer’s back. Inside the space, they spot the battery on the far side of the room, next to an odd metal bridge. Studying the strangely plus sign-shaped bridge carefully, Anna feels there is more to the structure. The archer gulps when she spots a large lava pit under the bridge.
Nolegs pats her head to calm her down. Anna chuckles and pats the cat's head back. But when she steps forward to the battery but some kunai are flying toward in front of her, which makes her jump back. She looks up and sees two ninjas hanging themselves on the ceiling.
Anna asks them, "Who are you?"
The ninjas say nothing as they throw shuriken at her but Nolegs blocks it with his shield. The female ninja seems impressed by the cat and chuckles. "Looks like you got a good fighting cat."
The male ninja continues her words, "We are maybe ninjas but we don't like to fight against nameless opponents." He raises his sword and points at Anna, "Tell me who are you?"
"Anna... My name is Anna," Anna raises her bow at the ninjas, "And you are?"
The male ninja introduces himself, "My name is Jack, and this is my little sister Drill." His sister kneels to remove a sword. Then she charges at Anna at such a high-speed Anna can't see her. When the ninja is going to slash the archer, the attack is blocked by Nolegs. Drill is surprised at the cat’s skills. Nolegs quickly counterattacks by jumping on the sword and slashes at Drill. The ninja evades the attack. She attempts to kick the cat but it gets blocked by his shield. As the ninja plans her next attack, she feels her leg getting cold. Nolegs had used an ice spell on his attacker. Sensing danger, Drill quickly shakes the cat off and jumps back to her brother.
Drill glances at Jack as she is using a fire spell to melt her frozen legs, "looks like we have an annoying opponent."
Jack nods, "Yeah, looks like that cat can match our speed."
In the meantime, Anna doesn't know what to do. Her hand aches as she attempts to aim her bow at the rapidly moving ninjas. This is going to be a bad battle for her.
Sunset is going inside the third room. As she walks into the room, she sees many strings hanging all over the room. The dragon pokes the string if something happens, but nothing happens. Sunset breathes fire at the strange strings but they do not burn. Sunset admires these strings but that is not enough to stop her. Sunset takes a deep breath and is going to breathe fire again but an arrow is shooting at her as Sunset catches the arrow in the air. She glances back and sees an archer sticking to the pole.
"Who the hell are you?" Sunset breaks the arrow. "Some kind of spider archer?"
"That is an insult for me, lizard." The archer goes down and faces the dragon, "Nobody called me like a spider archer as you did." Sunset points at the strings as the archer sighs, "That is my favorite texture. Don't mind it,"
"You seem more polite than any opponent I ever faced," Sunset turns her body at him, "My Name is Sunset, and you?"
"Karel," the archer raises a black bow at Sunset, "Karel, the archer."
Sunset covers her staff with a blue fire aura as she stands in the defense position. The duo prepares to battle.
"Hey, you shouldn't step forward like that," Matt yells at Natalie as he is standing on 6E while Natalie is standing on 4D. Matt continues, "Now, please walk to the left one step then forward one step." Natalie follows his direction, and now she is standing on 5E, near Matt.
" I wonder who made this room?" Natalie asks as she looks around the room, "I bet the owner of this room likes to play chess."
"It's me," A voice comes from the battery spot as the duo looks at it. A man wearing a chess costume is turning at them. He is currently sitting on a chair and stares at the duo, "I am.... the Chess Master," fireworks fire behind him to decorate his seat, "I love playing chess. And you two have to follow my rules." After being silent for a while, the duo laughs out loud at the chess master. The chess master confuses about this, "Hey, what are you laughing at?"
"That is the silliest name I have ever heard," Matt is trying to answer because he has to hold his laugh, "And that silly costume..."
"Yeah... " Natalie agrees with Matt, "I like guy’s silly name. It makes me laugh."
The Chess Master slams at his chair and many knight armors are slowly rising on the ground. Now the duo is surrounded by armors as they are confused about these armors. The Chess Master claps his hand and some of the armors raise their swords and try to slash them. Matt raises his sword and spins himself with it while Natalie ducks to dodge and starts chanting the spell. All of the armor is shattered into pieces as Matt stops. He tries to balance due to dizziness after spinning himself.
The Chess Master claps his hand and another wave of armor is charging at them. Natalie slams the staff on the round and many fireballs rise from the ground and float in the air. Natalie claps her hands together and the fireballs explode, making the wave is down.
The Chess Master laughs at them, "Congratulations, you are stronger than I thought,"
Matt shakes his head to make himself conscious. He looks at the Chess Master and taunts, "Maybe you are just good at sitting on the chair and eating like a rat"
The Chess Master hears that and he stands up, stomps his feet. The bigger armors with claymore stand before the duo. Matt smirks as this is a good warmup for him.